Charlize takes charge

Life after Monster couldn't be better or busier for the South African Oscar winner, Michaela Boland discovers.

Charlize Theron is movie-star familiar. Her smooth, ex-model looks have been reproduced in photographs by the thousand during a decade in Hollywood.

But in the flesh she has a stand-out quality often missed by the camera, even when her image is magnified to cinematic proportions: Theron's a big girl.

She's 175 centimetres, has broad, bony shoulders and walks with long, languid strides. This horsy quality gives the impression Theron is capable of bearing a heavy burden, which, as the world has learnt in recent years, she is.

It has become well-known that Theron's mother Gerda shot dead Theron's father after he attacked them in a drunken rage on the family farm in Benoni, South Africa. Theron, an only child, was 16 years old. Just a few weeks after this incident, she won a local modelling contest and, at her mother's urging, left to work as a model in Milan. She never turned back.

From modelling, Theron pursued ballet, but her ambitions of becoming a dancer were scuttled at 18 when she injured her knee while rehearsing with New York's Joffrey Ballet School. Her mother suggested she go to Hollywood and become an actress. She did.

In 2004 Theron is Hollywood's It girl. After collecting an Oscar in February for her lead role as a tortured lesbian serial killer in Monster, she has been elevated from a place where there was some scepticism that she could act, to the top of everyone's hit list.

The 28-year-old has a pair of movies releasing this year, will shoot another two between now and Christmas, and she's just been announced as lead role in The Ice At The Bottom Of The World with director Kimberly Peirce (who directed Hilary Swank to Oscar glory in Boys Don't Cry).

Theron is dating 31-year-old Irish actor Stuart Townsend, with whom she worked on a coming movie for Australian director John Duigan. Head In The Clouds is a sweeping, 1930s romantic drama about three friends separated by war in Europe, and also stars Penelope Cruz.

First up for release, though, is The Life And Death Of Peter Sellers, produced by US cable TV network HBO (The Sopranos and Sex And The City). Initially intended as a telemovie, Theron nabbed the role of Britt Ekland, Sellers's second wife and the most recognised of the still-living characters in the movie, long before Monster was released. That Theron's Nordic good looks resemble Ekland's must have, partly at least, recommended her for the role.

Theron said she felt a huge responsibility playing Ekland, who ended up forging a formidable career as a screen siren in the 1970s and '80s.

"I was very sensitive towards her because it was [her] life," she said.

However, she felt confident the script had been thoroughly researched. "I want to go through life not having destroyed somebody's life or misrepresented it. For me the reason to make these kinds of movies, or to make a Monster, is to tell the truth."

The biopic of the genius British comedian also stars Geoffrey Rush in his best performance yet. In a movie spanning Sellers's entire career, Rush portrays the actor in his full crazy, nervous frailty and enacts signature characters such as Dr Strangelove and Inspector Clouseau.

There's a rich irony that The Life And Death Of Peter Sellers zeros in on Sellers's personal life, rather than his career. Director Stephen Hopkins's scrutiny of Sellers's tantrums, foibles and complete inability to relate to those around him is like a tabloid gossip story blended with a very well done Hallmark melodrama. It is the sort of tabloid celebrity examination abhorred by the roll call of serious thespians who queued to make this movie.

"It is semi-autobiographical, you know," Rush joked about the movie at Cannes. Lucky for him Sellers has been dead 24 years.

An autobiographical movie of Theron herself's life would certainly be something worth seeing, but, as recently as 1999 she was telling people her dad had been killed in a car accident.

How about a film about what really happened? "That would be one boring film," Theron countered. "I can't even imagine, I would be very apprehensive about it.

"I'm very excited about the next two projects I'm doing," she said. "They're both with woman directors again, which I now think are my lucky charms." (American indie director Patty Jenkins invited her out of the blue to star in Monster.)

"I'm working with Karyn Kusama who did Girlfight a couple of years ago, after that I'm working with Niki Caro [the New Zealand director of Whale Rider]. Both are physical transformation parts. They both said Monster had opened their eyes."

Theron's character in Monster, the monster of the title, was several kilograms heavier than her usual weight and thick make-up rendered the beauty unrecognisable, not unlike Nicole Kidman's Oscar-winning uglification in The Hours the year before.

So, is she treated differently now she has a little gold statue tucked at home?

"I don't know how to say this without sounding like a weird . . . um, like, I'm this homophobe."

Homophobe? Theron's character in Monster was gay but she wasn't so convincing that she might have ruled herself out of playing straight roles in the future.

"Not homophobe! I stay at home, what's that word where you don't leave your house?"

Agoraphobe?

"Yeah, something like that! It's not like I'm out on the streets meeting strangers and seeing how they respond to me. Especially after that whole crazy three months [campaigning during Oscar season], I've been really trying to find calmness again and peace."

The Life And Death Of Peter Sellers is released on August 26.

A memorable time for Ekland

Swedish actress Britt Ekland married 38-year-old Peter Sellers in 1964 after a whirlwind, three-week courtship. She was just 21, but already making her name in the Italian movie industry. He was divorced, depressed and lonely but adored beautiful women and pursued her after his fortune teller predicted he would find true happiness with someone with the initials B.E.

Their marriage was blessed with a child but marred by Sellers's worsening depression and anxiety. It lasted just four years.

Sellers's son from his first marriage, Michael, has denounced the book which formed the basis of The Life And Death Of Peter Sellers, but Ekland had no such misgivings. She even agreed to be Charlize Theron's date at the film's premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May.

"I can't imagine going to a festival and seeing a film about a piece of your life for the first time, sitting next to the actress that plays you," Theron said. "It was very emotional for her [so] I didn't feel comfortable diving into all of her personal moments with him.

"The only thing she said was, 'Peg was really skinny!'." Peg, Sellers's mum, is played by portly Miriam Margolyes.